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Eva Longoria Says Way We're Handling Border Crisis Is "Un-American"

Eva Longoria has always been forthright with her opinions on political issues, and this time is no different. While the border crisis continues, Eva Longoria took to the stage at the National Council of La Raza's Award Gala, where she was being honored for her activism, to talk frankly about the influx of migrant children.

"I’m surprised at the handling of it,” Longoria stated, according to The Huffington Post. “Americans of every background are disappointed with how the issue has been handled, and I think it’s time for leaders from both parties to set aside partisan bickering and their own narrow political goals and get immigration reform done. How it’s been handled has been unbelievable, unacceptable and un-American.”

Longoria talked about how, growing up in Texas, her family often crossed into Mexico for lunch or supplies. “I just remember, there was always these really long lines and then there were these little lines that we went to, and my dad would always say, ‘Don’t forget to say American citizen’ and so we’d get to the border and I’d say, ‘American citizen!’ and then they let us through. There was no checking of passports at that time and no papers to show, you just said ‘American citizen.’ And I remember telling my dad, ‘Why doesn’t everybody in that line just say American citizen?’ -- I really thought they were magic words, I thought, ‘They don’t know the magic words!’ -- and my dad said, ‘No, they can’t say American citizen because they were born on the other side, el otro lado,’ and I said, ‘Why were we born on this side?’ and he said, ‘Because we were lucky.’”

“And I just can’t help but think and reflect on the situation that’s happening now on the border, everything that’s unfolding on our border -- 57,000 children who did not have the luck to be born in America. Little is being done to understand who these children are, where they’re coming from, what they’re facing,” she continued.

“They had the bad luck to be born in poor, violent countries in Central America. These children are running for their lives, and they believe that the United States will protect them. And ‘will we?’ is the question, and I don’t know.”